Chapter 11

"He d' seem to have filled out, though he have been punished so terrible out yonder."

"My dear, they did tell I as his poor leg was all one solid wownd. D'ye mind how Mrs. Baverstock did take on, pore 'ooman. And well she mid."

"Well she mid, indeed. Ah! 'tis a comfort to see as Corporal Baverstock d' seem able to walk so well as ever. I see Mrs. Baverstock didn't come to church--'tis a wonder."

"Nay, no wonder at all. It bain't likely as the poor body could leave her Sunday dinner the very first day her son be a-comed home. She's busy, that's what she be."

"Ah! to be sure. There, Lard now, look at Tilly Ann! He've a-got her up in his arms. Dear, to be sure, 'tis a beautiful sight, they two faces side by side. The maid doesn't favour her daddy a bit--nay, 'tis the very pictur' o' the pore wife."

"'E-es; she had that yellow hair, and them great big blue eyes. There, I've a-got a china cup at home what be jist the same colour. 'Tisn't nat'ral for a maid to have eyes that blue. I wouldn't mention it to Mrs. Baverstock, nor yet to Dick, but I shouldn't wonder at all if Tilly Ann was to follow her mother afore very long, pore little maid."

"Ah! they do say as when a young mother be took like that, as often as not she'll keep on a-callin' and a-callin', till the pore little thing she've a-left behind fair withers away."

While this cheerful line of prognostication was being followed up beyond her ken, Tilly Ann sat bolt upright in her father's arms, looking round her with a proprietary air, and occasionally patting his cheek with a broad dimpled little palm. She was a tall, well-made child, plump and fair, with rosy cheeks and sturdy limbs that would in themselves have given the lie to any dismal croakings; it was no wonder that "daddy's" eyes perpetually rested on her with a glow of pride.

"And she were quite a little 'un when ye did last see her, weren't she, Corporal?" said some one. (In Branston the good folk were punctilious with regard to titles.) "Ye'd scarce ha' knowed her I d' 'low if ye'd met her on the road."

"Know her," said Corporal Baverstock, "I'd know her among a thousand! 'Tis what I did write to my mother. Says I, 'I'd pick her out anywheres, if 'twas only by the dimple in her chin.'"

The bystanders nodded at each other; they remembered that particular letter well, and had much appreciated the phrase in question.

"To be sure, Corporal, so ye did, so ye did. And the maid have a dimple sure enough. There, 'tis plain for all folks to see."

Tilly Ann turned up her little face, and her father kissed the cleft chin with sudden passion. Then he tossed her up in his arms and laughed.

"Many a time I've a-thought o' that dimple," he observed, in rather an unsteady voice, "and wondered if I'd ever set eyes on it again."

"And look at her curls," said a woman admiringly. "They be a-sheenin' like gold to-day. She thinks a deal o' they curls, don't 'ee, Tilly? If anybody axed her for one she'd al'ays say she was a-savin' on 'em up for daddy--didn't 'ee, Tilly?"

Tilly Ann, overcome with coyness, buried her face in her father's shoulder, and giggled, wriggling her little fat body the while, and drumming on his side with her lace-up boots.

"Hold hard there!" cried he. "Them boots of yourn be so bad as a pom-pom. Come, we must be lookin' up the wold lady. Say Ta-ta, and we'll be off."

One blue eye peeped out shyly from beneath the forest of curls, one little sunburnt hand was waved comprehensively; a smothered voice uttered the necessary "Ta-ta," with an accompaniment of chuckles and wriggles, and the soldier, clasping his burden more tightly, and nodding laughingly right and left made his way towards home.

No one, looking at Mrs. Baverstock as she stood at her doorway in her neat black stuff gown, the sleeves of which were decently drawn down to her very wrists, would have guessed at the magnitude of the culinary labours in which she had been employed. The beef was now done to a turn, the "spuds" boiled to a nicety; she had made pastry of the most solid description, which was even now simmering in the oven--I use the word "simmering" advisedly, for in the generosity of her heart she had not spared the dripping. The tea was brewed, hot and strong, the teapot, singed by long use, standing on the hob. There was a crusty loaf, a pat of butter indented in the middle with one of Dick's regimental buttons, and a plate of cakes, hard as the nether--millstone and very crumbly, having been purchased from the distant town at the beginning of the week in expectation of this auspicious day.

"Well, mother, this be a spread!" cried the soldier, good-humouredly, as he set the child upon her legs. "I haven't sat down to such a meal as this since I left old England. 'Tis fit for a king."

Mrs. Baverstock rubbed her bony hands together; and laughed deprecatingly. She was a little woman, with very bright, beady black eyes, and hair that was still coal-black in spite of her wrinkled face. Her son was like her, but taller and better looking. One had but to glance at the child to realise that she must be the image of her mother.

"Nay, now," said the widow; "I do do my best for 'ee, Dick, but I d' 'low it bain't so very grand. I'd like to do 'ee honour. There bain't nothin' too good for 'ee to my mind, if I could give it 'ee."

"I tell 'ee, mother, some of the poor chaps out yonder 'ud give summat to sit down to this 'ere dinner. Bully beef wi' a pound or two o' raw flour, what you haven't got nothin' to cook wi'--it do make a man feel a bit sick, I can tell 'ee, when it do come day arter day."

"Dear heart alive," groaned his mother, "a body 'ud think they mid manage a bit better! Lard, to think on't! Tis all along o' the poor dear Queen bein' dead, ye mid be sure! There needs to be a woman at the head o' things! I reckon the Government be all made up o' men folks now, and men never has any notion o' doin' for theirselves. There, I did use to say to father many a time, 'If I was to leave 'ee to yourself I d' 'low ye'd go eatin' any kind o' rubbish.' There wants to be a sensible woman or two i' th' Government--no woman 'ud ever think o' sendin' out the poor chaps' bit o' food raw. There bain't a hedger or ditcher but has his bit o' dinner put ready for en, and I reckon soldiers have got stummicks much same as other folks."

Dick had only half attended to this speech; he had been standing by the door intently gazing up the village street, and shading his eyes with his hand.

"Why, I'm blowed!" he exclaimed. "Here's a mate o' mine ridin' this way! Yes, so it be. I thought he was goin' a-coortin'. Hullo, Billy!"

A bicycle wheeled round abruptly, and the rider alighted at the cottage door. A big young man, with the bronzed face which would have announced his recent return from the front, even had not his khaki uniform proclaimed the fact.

"I thought I'd look 'ee up," he explained, shaking hands with his friend with a somewhat sheepish air. "You and me bein' mates, d'ye see, and me feelin' a bit dull over yonder."

"Why, what's become o' she?" interrupted Dick, with a grin.

"Don't talk about her! She be just like the rest--'Out o' sight out o' mind'--took up wi' a civilian soon as my back were turned. I reckoned I'd come and have a look at _your_ maid."

"Yes, to be sure!" cried Dick jovially. "My sweetheart han't a-took up wi' anybody else--she've a-been faithful and true."

"What's that?" inquired Mrs. Baverstock, coming forward, her little black eyes looking ready to start from her head.

"Tis a kind of a little joke what me and Billy have a-got between us about my sweetheart. There, he can tell 'ee the tale while we're eatin'. This 'ere be my mother, Billy. This be Mr. Billy Caines--a Darset man same as myself. Him and me was reg'lar pals out there, wasn't we, Bill?"

"I d' 'low we was," responded Private Caines, after ceremoniously pumping Mrs. Baverstock's hand up and down. "We did fight side by side, and we was wounded side by side, and we was a-layin' side by side for weeks in the field hospital, wasn't us, Dick?"

"I reckon we had a bit too much o' that there hospital," responded the Corporal, drawing forward a chair for his friend. "'Twas there we did have so much talk about my sweetheart. Ha, ha, ye didn't know as I'd a-got a sweetheart, did ye, old lady?" he inquired of his mother. "Billy 'ull tell 'ee about that," and he winked surreptitiously at his friend.

Mrs. Baverstock was evidently in a flutter. What between this sudden arrival of six feet of khaki-clad humanity and the innuendoes which had been recently thrown out, touching a subject on which she felt strongly (the possibility of Dick's marrying again), she actually set the pastry on the table in the place of the beef, and helped the two soldiers to a cake each instead of a piece of bread.

"Why, you be wool-gathering, that you be. You've a-got everything in a reg'lar caddie!" cried her son, as she paused to clack her tongue remorsefully over her mistakes. "Business first and pleasure arterwards. Up wi' the beef! Now then, Billy, fall to! A bit better tasted nor bully, bain't it?"

Billy groaned appreciatively, with his mouth full, and silence ensued, during which Mrs. Baverstock cut up Tilly Ann's dinner, and presented her with a spoon.

Tilly Ann's eyes had been fixed unwinkingly upon the new comer since his arrival, and she had now apparently classified him, for, after successfully piloting one or two spoonfuls of beef and potato to her little red mouth, she paused, drummed on the table with the handle of her spoon, and remarked conclusively:

"Another daddy!"

"Dear, to be sure! Hark to the child," said granny, while the two men laughed uproariously.

"The little maid's sharp, I can tell 'ee," announced Dick; "she do know the difference between soldier and civilian a'ready. Never see'd no soldier but I afore, and now, when another do come, says she to herself, 'This must be another daddy.' Ho! ho!"

"She've a-got more sense nor many a wolder maid," returned Private Caines gloomily; "she do know what's what--I d' 'low she wouldn't ha' gone a-takin' up wi' a (qualified) civilian when you weren't to the fore. She be a bonny little maid, too," he added reflectively, eyeing the chubby pink and white face. "Yes, you've a-got good taste, as you did tell I out yonder."

"Come, don't 'ee spoil the tale," cried the Corporal, laughing; "begin at the right end. My mother here do want to hear about my sweetheart."

"I don't want to hear no sich thing," retorted the old woman, querulously, but anxiously, too. "I do know 'ee better nor to think you'd have any sich nonsensical notions; you as be a widow man, and have a-buried sich a lovin' wife, what have a-left 'ee the darlingest little maid to keep. Us do want no step-mothers; us do want all the love, the wold mother and the little maid."

Dick's face twitched, and his eyes clouded, but before he could answer, Private Billy Caines, who was not endowed with remarkably acute perceptions, began his narrative in a loud and merry voice.

"Him and me was knocked over the same day--I shouldn't wonder but what it was the same shell. I couldn't tell 'ee for sure about that, for I were hit all to flinders, and for a bit they thought I was done for. But when I did get a bit better, and did begin to look about, I'm danged if the first thing I did see weren't poor old Dick's long white face, lyin' there so solemn, wi' his girt hollow black eyes, a-starin' and a-starin' straight i' front of en. I did use to watch en, and he did always look the same--sorrowful and anxious, and one day I did call out to en, soft like, 'What be thinkin' on, man? The us'al thing, I s'pose?' He did scraggle his head a bit round on the pillow and squint back at me. 'What mid that be?' says he. 'Why,' says I, 'the girl I left behind me!' 'Be that what you be a-thinkin' on?' says he. 'O' course,' says I; 'what else?' 'What else, indeed?' says he, and he did sigh same as if he had a bellows inside of en."

"Did he actually say he was a-thinkin' about soom maid?" interrupted Mrs. Baverstock wrathfully.

"Bide a bit," retorted Private Caines, wagging his head portentously; "I be a-tellin' the tale so quick as I can. Well, I did get tired o' watchin' en layin' there, starin' and sighin', so I did begin to tell en about somebody _I_ did think a deal on then, but have a-changed my mind about now; and he did listen and laugh a bit, but I could see he were a-thinkin' about his own sweetheart all the time. So says I at last, 'I d' 'low she be a vitty maid?' 'Who?' says he, scraggling round again. 'The girl ye left behind ye,' says I. 'Ah, to be sure,' says he. 'Yes, she be a reg'lar pictur.' 'Well, you mid tell us a bit about her,' says I; 'I've a-told 'ee all about my maid. Blue eyes, I s'pose?' Seein' as his own be so black as sloes, I reckoned 'twould come naitral to en to take up wi' a fair maid. 'Yes,' says he, 'so blue as the sky at home on a June day!' I made a good shot, I told en. 'A good bit o' colour, I d' 'low!' (Him bein' a sallow man, d'ye see.) 'A pair o' cheeks like roses,' he says; 'and a little neck as white--as the snow--nay, that's too cold--'tis more like the white of a white flower, bless her!'"

Mrs. Baverstock threw herself back in her chair and snorted.

"This here be a pretty kind o' story to tell your mother the very first day as you do come home," she said, in trembling tones. "And the poor, innocent child a-sittin' there a-listenin' to every word."

"Nay, now, ma'am, you must hear me to the end," cried Caines, bursting into a guffaw; while Dick, looking somewhat conscience-stricken, patted his mother's hand and besought her in a loud whisper not to take on.

"Lard bless 'ee, that weren't all!" exclaimed Billy. "You should ha' heerd the chap a-ravin' about her little hands, and her darlin' little feet, and I don't know what all. 'And what colour mid her hair be?' I axed him arter a bit, when he'd a-told me everythink else he could call to mind. 'I s'pose her hair be fair?' 'I s'pose so,' says he, lookin' a bit queer. 'Why, don't ye know?' says I. 'D'ye mean to say ye've forgot the colour?' 'Why,' says he, 'to tell 'ee the truth, mate, she hadn't much hair o' any kind when last I did see her.' 'Bless us!' says I. 'What be talkin' on? Ye haven't been and took up wi' a bald wold maid?' 'She bain't so very old,' says he, and he did pull blanket up o'er his mouth so as I shouldn't see en laughin'!"

Here the hero of the tale startled his mother by suddenly exploding, and she turned upon him indignantly.

"I do really think as we've a-had enough o' this here nonsense. I can't make head or tail on't. You and your friend do seem to be a-keepin' up a regular charm, and I can't make out no sense in it."

"I be very nigh done now, missis," cried Caines jubilantly; "there be but a little bit more. I did sit and stare at en when he did say his sweetheart hadn't no hair, and at last I did ax en the question straight out, 'How old mid she be when you did last see her?' 'About two months,' says he. Ho, ho, ho! 'About two months!' Yes, I've a-been away from England a good bit, an' when I left her she hadn't a hair on her head, nor yet a tooth in her mouth.' And the two of us did laugh and laugh till we did very nigh bust our bandages."

"'Twas the little maid I did mean," explained Dick, as his mother still stared gapingly from one to the other. "'Twas my little maid as I was a-thinkin' on when I did lie on that there wold stretcher what I did think I should never leave again. I did think o' she and wonder what 'ud become o' she if doctor couldn't make a job o' me. Come here, Tilly. You be daddy's little sweetheart, bain't ye?"

The child ran to him, and climbed upon his knee, and he passed his hand proudly through her mass of yellow curls.

"See here, mate; plenty o' hair here now."

He gathered up the thick locks half absently, twisting them clumsily into a kind of knot, and, throwing back his head, surveyed her pensively for a moment; then he kissed her just at the nape of the neck, and let the curls drop again with a sigh.

Mrs. Baverstock's beady eyes became momentarily dim; she did not possess by nature a very large amount of intuition, but love is a wonderful sharpener of wits.

"Dear, yes," she said. "She be the very pictur' of her mother." Then, suddenly bursting out laughing and clapping her hands together, "So that were the girl ye left behind ye!"

ELLENEY

Mrs. McNally's house was situated at the extreme end of the village, and looked not upon the street, but right out into the glen, so that when Elleney opened her attic window in the morning her blue eyes feasted on a wilderness of trees, exquisite at this season with an infinite variety of tints; for the tender bloom of an Irish spring is only surpassed in beauty by the glories of an Irish autumn. The undulating masses that would in October glow with a myriad fires were now clad in the colours of the opal, delicate pinks and blues and greys of yet unopened buds forming a background to the pure vigorous green of larch or chestnut in full leaf, while here and there a group of wild cherry-trees--trees which in a few months would be clothed in the hues of the sunset--caught the morning light now on raiment as snowy as the summit of the Jungfrau.

Elleney gazed, and rubbed big eyes yet heavy with slumber, and gazed again; then she heaved a deep sigh, half of rapture, half of regret.

"It's beautiful, entirely," she said. "An' that big black hill at the back o' the trees is the grandest ever I seen. But I'd sooner be lookin' out at the little green hills at our own place, with me poor father--the Lord ha' mercy on his soul!--walkin' about on them."

She passed her hand across her eyes now for another reason, and then sighed again, but presently took herself to task.

"Sure, I've no call at all to be frettin'; I have a right to know better, so I have. Me poor dada is gone where he's out of his throubles, please God; an' amn't I too well off myself here in this grand place, with me a'nt an' everywan so kind to me? Ye ought to be ashamed o' yourself, Elleney, to go cryin' an' frettin' when it's down on your knees ye should be, thankin' God. Hurry up now, an' on with your clothes an' get the breakfast! Sunday mornin' an' all, an' the girls down an' workin' about, I'll engage."

These remonstrances, which were made aloud with exceptional severity of aspect, but in the sweetest, softest little voice in the world, appeared to have the desired effect. The eyes were dried, the sobs checked, and soon Elleney emerged from her garret, and came clattering down the corkscrew stairs in her unyielding little best boots, clad all in her Sunday finery, every sunshiny hair in its place, and her blooming face a vision of wonder and delight to any chance beholder.

One such beholder encountered her in the narrow passage downstairs, and respectfully flattened himself against the wall to let her pass.

"It's a fine mornin', Miss Elleney," said the young man.

Elleney started, stared, and then broke into a laugh.

"It's you, is it, Pat Rooney? I didn't know ye, ye're so grand this mornin'. You do be generally all over flour--I never see you without lookin' out for flour."

"An' I never see you, Miss Elleney," responded Pat Rooney gallantly, "without bein' put in mind of another kind o' flower. Sure, you look the very same as a rose to-day."

"Not at all," laughed Elleney, blushing, but quite frank and unconcerned; "I wouldn't ask to be thought aiqual to anything so grand as that. A daisy maybe, or--"

"Elleney!" called a shrill voice from some distant region. "_Elleney!_ We are all famished entirely. Girl alive, do ye forget it's your week for the breakfast? I never heard the like! We've been waitin' this half-hour."

"Laws," ejaculated Elleney under her breath, and with a conscience-stricken face. "I didn't forget; but sure I didn't know what o'clock it was, an' there's the eggs to boil an' all. Me cousin Juliana 'ull be murderin' me. I'm just bringin' it, Ju," she called back apprehensively. "And goodness only knows if the kettle 'ull be boilin', itself," she added in a distracted undertone, "an' I'm afther forgetting my big aperon upstairs, an' if I go an' black my best dress me a'nt 'ull be the death o' me."

"Aisy now, don't be tormentin' yourself that way," cried Pat soothingly. "Sure I'll just go along wid ye into the kitchen, an' if I don't have that kettle bilin' in next to no time my name's not Pat Rooney. It's me that's used to fires--ye'll see how I'll blow up yours for ye, miss. There now, wasn't it by the greatest good luck I looked in this mornin' to pick up my pipe that I left down below in the bakehouse? Cheer up, Miss Elleney--we'll not be keepin' them long waitin' for their breakfasts now."

Even while speaking the young baker had preceded the girl into the kitchen, possessed himself of the bellows, and blown up the fire; he now deftly dropped an entire basketful of eggs into a saucepan, and, with a large loaf in one hand and a knife in the other, began with almost incredible speed to cut off thick rounds.

"I suppose ye have the cloth laid?" he inquired presently.

"Me cousin Henerietta does that; I only has the breakfast itself to get, an' there's not much trouble in that, on'y I'm such a slowcoach, an' someway--I don't know how it was--my wits went wool-gatherin' this mornin'."

"Well, I'll tell ye what, miss; if ye'll wet the tay an' pop the pot down on the hob, the eggs 'ull be done, an' by the time ye have them brought in the bread 'ull be toasted illigant. Herself won't know ye, the way ye'll have got up the breakfast so quick."

"I'm very thankful to ye, Pat," said Elleney gratefully. "I'm sure I don't know what in the world I'd have done without ye. But it's too bad to be givin' ye all that trouble."

"Not at all, miss; no trouble at all. Sure I wouldn't have it on me conscience for you to be roastin' that lovely face off o' yourself at this terrible hot fire. The egg-cups is there on the shelf behind ye--I can see them from here. There now, sure ye have it all grand--wait till I open the door for ye. Now I'll have the loveliest lot o' toast ready for ye when ye come back. That thray's too heavy for ye entirely--it's a poor case altogether that I haven't got another pair o' hands."

Elleney's gay little laugh trilled out again, and she shot a glance of confiding gratitude from under her thick dark lashes in the direction of the young baker which set the honest fellow's heart dancing, though he well knew how little such innocent warmth meant.

"God bless her," he murmured as he returned to his toasting fork; "if a dog done anything for her she'd look at it the same. If she wasn't the mistress's niece itself, ye might whistle for her, Pat, me boy."

Meanwhile Elleney had gone staggering along the passage with her heavy tray, and now bumped it against the parlour door as an intimation that she would like some one to open it.

This unspoken request was acceded to so suddenly that she almost fell forward into the room.

"I was waitin' on the eggs," she explained hurriedly, as she recovered her balance and tottered forward with her burden; "but here they are for yous now, and the tea is wet this good bit, an' the toast is very near ready."

The room was full of women; no less than eight of them sat expectantly round the empty board. Besides Mrs. McNally herself and her four daughters, three nieces had been added to her family on the death of their mother, Mrs. McNally's only sister.